March for Santiago Maldonado on 1 September 2017 in Santa Fe, Argentina. TitiNicola/Wikipedia Commons. Some rights reserved.
This article was published prior to the discovery of Santiago Maldonado’s body in the Chubut river. The body was found on 17 October 2017 during a court-ordered sweep of the area; three days later, after identification procedures had been carried out, his family confirmed that the body was Santiago Maldonado’s. The results of the autopsy have yet to be released.
Santiago Maldonado was last seen on 1 August 2017, trying to flee from Argentina’s Gendarmerie (border guards) in the territory of the “Pu Lof Cushamen” Mapuche community. The 28-year-old was there supporting the indigenous group’s demands that their ancestral lands be returned to them – including Patagonian tracts currently owned by Benetton.
